We still have a ways to go on race relations

Joan Michaels of Seattle, a white woman, had her purse snatched by a young black man in a baseball cap. Since then, she has flinched on seeing black men in baseball caps, and wonders if she's racist.

That's the sort of self-examination National Public Radio's Michele Norris spurred by asking people to submit six words that "race" conjures up for them.

Michaels' six: "Blackman, baseball cap - I, shockingly, flinch!" She went on to explain: "I never thought myself 'racist,' but for some time after the incident, I would have the above reaction when encountering a young black man."

Norris, who is black, is the former co-host of NPR's "All Things Considered," and now a special correspondent with the radio network. Her latest endeavor, "The Race Card Project," aims to initiate a national conversation on the touchy subject of race. She is bringing that conversation to Drake University tonight.

In preparation for her appearance, Drake asked people to submit their own six words through Facebook and Twitter. Two campus organizations, Working Group for the Infusion of Global and Multicultural Understandings and the Coalition of Black Students, arranged to have blank cards and submission boxes placed around campus. Those will be incorporated into an art piece in the Olmsted Center after Norris' visit.

Norris puzzles over the term, "post-racial America," which has been used to describe the nation now that it has a black president. "What the heck does that mean?" asked Norris in a recent phone interview. "Is it over?"

One could argue, on the contrary, that President Obama's election has brought out the nation's racial polarization. Many believe congressional resistance to having him succeed was at least partly due to his race. During his first campaign, the Web was abuzz with rumors he wasn't a citizen or was a radical Islamist.

Norris says she's not trying to solve race relations, nor focus on "big moment" events like the Trayvon Martin shooting or college affirmative action. She wants to explore the ways people experience race in their daily lives: "The way someone looks at you and grabs their purse, what box you check."

For her, this conversation has a personal aspect. In 2010 her book, "The Grace of Silence: A Family Memoir," was published. It began as an exploration of America's "hidden conversation about race," but took a more personal turn after she learned of her own parents' and grandparents' experiences with race, which had been kept secret from her.

She plans another book based on this project.

Though race affects us all, it's often the elephant in the living room we're afraid to touch. But the 35,000 responses logged so far show many have much to say on it. Some examples from theracecardproject.com:

"White, straight, male. New favorite target."

"I don't exist for your curiosity."

"I'm black but not African-American."

"My race has never defined me."

"Feeling guilty for my ivory privilege."

One woman wrote, "If I married black man - disowned." A man responded, "I was disowned by my black family but my white in-laws are my new family. Oh, the irony."

Another man weighed in: "Well why would you do that to your family?" A woman added, "Nobody likes a race traitor."

I asked Norris if she thought many white participants felt put on the defensive by the premise. She said while some do, others have felt excluded from such conversations because they "feel they lack culture, or they don't have a place at the table."

On the day we spoke, I had just received an email from some right-wing group alleging a burgeoning "race war" against whites by black gangs, which it claims mainstream media refuse to acknowledge. Conservative black commentators Allen West, a Fox News contributor, and syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell are also espousing these positions.

The anti-racism organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, counts 1,007 hate groups, a 67 percent increase since 2000. Those include "neo-Nazis, Klansmen, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads and black separatists." Their growth has been fueled, the organization says, by anger and fear over the economy, an influx of nonwhite immigrants and the diminishing white majority, "as symbolized by the election of the nation's first African-American president."

Post-racial society indeed.

Norris notes many submissions are framed as questions, suggesting people are open to learning. She's also learning. For example, framing the discussion in the context of race alone tends to exclude Asians, Native Americans and Latinos, for whom she says "skin color is not the issue." Ethnicity and cultural identity are more relevant.

So what would Norris' own race card say? She has new ones all the time, she said. Here's one: "Still more work to be done."

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We still have a ways to go on race relations

Joan Michaels of Seattle, a white woman, had her purse snatched by a young black man in a baseball cap. Since then, she has flinched on seeing black men in baseball caps, and wonders if she's racist.